1. The Field of the Invention
The invention relates to the field of storage management devices, methods, and systems. Specifically, the invention relates to devices, methods, and systems for storing containers in a selectively cascadeable first-in, first-out manner.
2. The Relevant Art
Storage management of dated or perishable items such as food, part inventories, or the like is a process common to both private individuals and large organizations. Private individuals often store a supply of dated or perishable items such as food in case of an emergency. Businesses and other organizations often maintain a large inventory of parts with a limited shelf life. Since dated or perishable items may become obsolete or spoiled, individuals and organizations need storage management devices and methods for efficiently rotating inventories.
Dated or perishable items are commonly stored in containers such as cans or boxes. Storage management devices for containers such as cans or boxes often include a shelving system, which may further include devices that facilitate rotation of containers in a first-in, first-out (“FIFO”) order, designed to prevent loss of dated or perishable items.
In some FIFO storage systems containers such as cans or boxes are placed onto a shelf and rolled down to a lower shelf until they are stopped at a dispensing area by a holding device. Subsequent containers inserted into the system roll down to the lower shelf until they are stopped by previous containers. FIFO storage systems allow containers to be removed from the shelves in the order that they were inserted, thereby preventing problems associated with using new containers before using old containers.
Some currently available FIFO storage systems include a set of shelf pairs, where the top shelf of a pair receives containers and the bottom shelf of the pair dispenses the containers. In some instances a shelf pair may be placed adjacent to or on top of another shelf pair, thereby creating a larger, modular storage unit.
One problem with two-shelf FIFO storage systems is that the shelf pairs have a limited capacity to store containers in a FIFO manner. When a shelf pair is full of containers containing a certain product, any new containers with that same product must be stored in another shelf pair. By storing containers holding the same products in multiple shelf pairs, the FIFO ordering of the containers is not preserved. Consequently, preventing the usage of new containers before using old containers becomes problematic.
Another type of currently available FIFO storage system offers a partial solution to this problem. Multiple shelves are cascaded, so that more than one shelf pair may be used to store containers holding the same products. Containers inserted into the top of a cascading shelf unit may roll down several shelves before reaching a dispensing area at the bottommost shelf. Cascaded FIFO storage systems are thus able to store greater numbers of containers than two-shelf FIFO storage systems.
One problem with cascading FIFO storage systems is that when a small number of containers are stored, a large amount of space is wasted. Such unused storage space cannot be used for other containers with different contents, because the other containers could not be retrieved until all of the first containers are retrieved.
What is needed are storage devices and methods that allow containers to be stored in a cascading, FIFO manner that also maximize storage space. Such a storage system would be selectively cascadeable, so that the amount of shelving used by a particular set of containers could be selected according to the number of containers that need to be stored. In particular, what is needed are devices and methods for selectively cascading FIFO storage containers for dated or perishable items so that a dynamically adjustable amount of space can be allocated for different sets of containers.